A reporter for the channel News Express in India has been fired after shooting a stand-up while covering flooding in the Uttarakhand region, sitting on the shoulders of a flood victim.

“You cannot ride on someone’s back for a story,” said News Express head Nishant Chaturvedi. “We terminated him on Tuesday.”

But Narayan Pargaien is blaming his cameraman for the stunt and says he was just doing it as a way to help the man.

“This was entirely the cameraman’s fault, who, it seems, almost tried to sabotage my career by shooting from that distance and angle and releasing the video mocking this whole incident, and making me the villain,” Pargaien said.